The plastic-free movement is growing! From supermarkets to street corners, brilliant new initiatives designed to remove plastic packaging from our everyday lives are being put in place.
Can you give these campaigns your support and cut your own plastic use in the process?
The UK’s first plastic-free supermarket aisles
Belsize Park isn’t the first place that springs to mind when you think of revolution. Yet community supermarket Thornton’s Budgens is changing the ‘big shop’ forever by introducing completely plastic-free zones.
More than 1,700 of their usual product lines have been converted to non-plastic packaging, including meats, cheese, vegetables and even crisps. It’s the start of a journey that promises to take the store “virtually plastic-free” within three years.
How you can help: Jump on social media or email and ask your supermarkets why they’re not doing the same. Take your own containers shopping and buy loose where possible. Otherwise choose products packaged in glass, metal or biodegradable materials before resorting to plastic packaging.
The return of drinking water fountains
Thames Water have joined forces with the Mayor of London to introduce hundreds of new drinking water fountains across the capital. By offering lovely clean tap water to those out and about, the hope is to drive down the number of single-use plastic drinks bottles ending up in landfill or polluting our rivers and oceans.
How you can help: Carry a plastic-free refillable bottle for your daily hydration. Top up for free from the tap, water fountains or businesses showing the Refill logo.
The completely naked shops
Ever tried a Lush shampoo bar? Firstly, locks love their nurturing natural ingredients. Secondly, they seem to last forever! In fact, one small shampoo bar does the same number of hair washes as roughly three 250g plastic bottles of liquid shampoo.
The always innovative team behind Lush went one step beyond in their quest for complete sustainability. They got naked! Well, not personally. But 65% of their regular products did.
In 2018, they opened their very first Naked shops in Milan, Berlin and Manchester. Haircare, skincare, bath bombs, shower gels and everything in between – completely packaging-free.
How you can help: Give Lush’s Naked products a go, or why not try making your own natural cosmetics at home using ingredients sourced in plastic-free packaging?
The rise of the zero waste shop removing plastic packaging
More of us are developing a taste for the zero waste lifestyle as hundreds of these sustainable shops open their doors for plastic-free shopping across the country.
From herbs and spices to bulk bins of rice, pasta and pulses; from plastic-free toothpaste, cotton buds and sanitary products to eco-detergent refills and unpackaged soaps: the range of items we can buy without generating any new plastic waste just keeps growing.
How you can help: Make a local zero waste shop part of your regular shopping routine. Tell your friends how much money you’re saving!
Use the ZeroWaste Near Me directory search to find packaging-free shops in your area.
